Federation Marines: Burden of Command
by Coota
Summary: A young Intelligence officer deals with her ability to command while her unit is trapped behind Zeon Lines. Part One of two is up now. Part Two, detailing the assault on the Zaku Unit(among other things), will come up shortly. Please R&R.


Mobile Suit Gundam Side Story: Burden of Command Part 1  
  
Year: UC 0080  
  
Captain Cara Millino, Lionheart Company, 3rd MS Team, was huddled with a dozen other soldiers, wearing what was left of her standard issue greatcoat. Much of it had been used as makeshift bandages, donated when she thought that they'd be rescued in a few hours. Those few hours had fast become days, and then weeks, leaving Millino and her fellow troops wondering if the Federation had forgotten about them. Millino was an officer, and had been taught to never show doubt in front of her men, but it was becoming harder. The soldiers under her were dying of wounds, diseases, and exposure, without any hope of relief: it wasn't in her to keep her feelings locked inside for this long. There was just no one to confide in anymore; they were either dead or a thousand miles away.  
  
Cara was the only officer on this godforsaken mountaintop, somewhere in Southeast Asia. Her entire division had been order to take it, and they had, with their usual efficiency. They were Federation Marines, and it was their job to do the hard work for the rest of the force. The Zeon troops on the mountain had put up a tough fight, and her force had taken heavy casualties, losing a good chunk of their equipment. However, they had succeeded, like they were supposed to. Cara's force was the spearhead of a new thrust that would finally break the Zeon stranglehold on Southeast Asia. They would punch through each Zeon strongpoint, finally meeting up with another force coming in from a second beachhead a few thousand miles away, in the remains of Vietnam. Her force had entered through the remains of Korea, and they were angling to recapture a major spaceport in the Chinese sector, farther north. If the plan had worked, they would have met with the Vietnam taskforce and hit the spaceport from two sides.  
  
The only problem was that everything had gone wrong. Cara's company had lost contact with the main force for about an hour after they had captured the Zeon strongpoint. Under normal circumstances, this would not have been a major intelligence failure, but these were not normal circumstances. When the company's communications tech had finally been able to break through Minovsky Particle interference, they had learned that the entire Regiment had shifted west due to a sudden Zeon counterattack. The forests below were now seething with Zeon troops and mobile suits, cutting off the Marines from their force. The situation had looked grim, but the officers of the unit had decided that trying to break through would be preferable to dying on a mountaintop.  
  
By all rights, the company should have broken through. They were the best trained, the most experienced, the greatest starfalling, Zeke killing soldiers in the Federation. Their mobile suits were not the advanced models given to the Vietnam Taskforce, but they were powerful enough: they had proved themselves in other operations, especially the break through from space. The unit had twelve of these suits, coupled with more than two hundred infantrymen and a variety of support vehicles. After the attempted breakthrough, the unit had been cut down to three suits and sixty men. The only support craft left were a couple of APCs. The colonel, Cara's commanding officer, had been one of the first to die, followed minutes later by his executive officer, leaving the rest of the officers without a clear line of command. The unit had collapsed from there, falling back to the mountain in pieces as the Zeon mobile suits weaved through the remains of the formation, destroying as many Federation units as possible.  
  
So, with only three Mobile Suits left, the Federation force was stuck in the position that it had feared the most. The Zeon Force had decided that a small unit of Feddies was not worth the trouble of assaulting right away, and so had left them to freeze on the mountaintop. Cara had a feeling that if the Zeon force had to retreat, they would attack the mountaintop on their way out, annihilating what was left of her company. As it was, the enemy just occasionally lobbed a few hundred shells up, as well as a few beam rifle shots. The problem was that she didn't know what to do until then. They could wait for a Federation rescue force, they could wait until they were all killed by a lucky shot, or they could try another breakthrough with the few suits they had left. None of these were an attractive alternative.  
  
Cara didn't even know how to deploy the Mobile Suits correctly: she was the Company's intelligence officer, not a pilot. The reason she'd survived the breakthrough attempt was that her lightly armed APC had hung back to feed position data to the pilots. She was being forced to rely entirely on the pilots who were left, all enlisted personnel. This did not exactly inspire confidence in her men, nor did it leave them feeling that they had a leader who could get them out of this situation. That was another tidbit that she'd learned back at the Academy: always appear to be in control of the situation, always seem to know more than your men, and never ever appear to be without a plan. Instead, she seemed to be completely helpless, completely out of her league.  
  
A sudden tap on the shoulder disturbed Cara from her reverie. She looked up to see the haggard face of Sergeant First Class Mores, one of the three surviving Mobile Suit pilots. "Ma'am, with all due respect, what are you doing?" the Sergeant questioned quietly, careful not to wake up any of the other men huddled in the foxhole.  
  
"Excuse me, Sergeant?"  
  
"I had Carlson and Laws set up a tent for you, and you're not in it. Now, before these men wake up, I suggest you follow me," the Sergeant spoke in a firm, commanding voice.  
  
Cara silently obeyed the Sergeant, almost as if he were the officer, and she the lowly enlisted man. The man wasn't exactly imposing, it was just his presence: he had been in the Federation armed forces for years, and had signed on with the Mobile Suit project as soon as it was put into practice. He was about 6'3, lanky yet muscular, like most of the other Marines. His face had a two weeks old growth of beard, technically against regulations, but a regulation that was largely ignored during combat. His hair, however, was still basically fashioned in the traditional Marine buzzcut. A pair of aviator style sunglasses covered his greenish eyes, and keeping out the stark glare coming from the snow covered mountain area. He must have been around thirty-three, but he looked somewhat older after all his years in the service. He was a stark contrast to Cara's slight build; she was only 5'9, with her brown hair well out of regulation length by now. She had not had the time to fashion it into a bun for some time, so it hung in a mess over her uniform.  
  
Once they were out of earshot from the rest of the men, the Sergeant began talking, "Now, Captain, I would not presume to tell you your duty during normal combat operations. From my observation, you are a reasonably competent Intelligence officer, despite the fact that we landed up here without knowing about a massive Zeon force coming this way. You warned us as soon as they came within sensor range, and we didn't move while we still had time. So you might think that you've basically done your job. You haven't."  
  
"What are you talking about, Sergeant?" Cara questioned, almost snarling. She may have felt helpless, but that didn't mean she needed some sergeant to tell her what her duty was.  
  
"I'm talking about the fact that you are not in your tent. Yeah, I know you were probably taught that you should sympathize with the men. It doesn't work that way, Captain. I've put the Mobile Suits we have left in positions that will basically cover us from as many angles as possible. Your job is to keep the men in a mood where they don't feel like we're almost certainly going to die. You do that by appearing to be in control of the situation. You do that by staying in your tent when you're sleeping, and encouraging the men when you aren't," Mores explained with even tones.  
  
"But I'm not in control of the situation, Sergeant. None of us are. I do not know how to deal with something like this."  
  
"Maybe not. And maybe I don't know either. But it's the job of an officer to keep the men from realizing that. You do not let those boys give up hope," Mores almost ordered, standing there with an implacable look on his face.  
  
"They should know that the situation is hopeless. They heard the radio traffic: we were ordered to stand by and wait for pickup in three days. It's been two weeks. We've been skirimishing with the Zekes every day, losing a few men here and there. They're beat."  
  
"Marines are never beat until they're dead, Captain. Millino, I do not like officers. No enlisted man does. But I do know what that when I was a grunt, I looked on you people like you were gods. When you're a First Sergeant, you don't get that luxury anymore. But if those girls and boys out there lose their perception of you as an officer, then they're dead."  
  
"They're already dead! We'd be safer if we surrendered," Millino replied fiercely, still keeping her voice low.  
  
"I'll pretend I didn't hear that, Captain, or else I'd be obligated to take command from you, and I don't want to do that. They're not going to be beat till they die, and they won't die until they've given up hope. They have not given up hope. And if you shape up and start acting like an officer, then they will not give up hope. It's a pretty simple proposition, Captain."  
  
"I'll take your word for it, Sergeant. Now, did you have anything to actually tell me, or were you just going to question my authority?" Millino nearly hissed.  
  
"I wasn't questioning your authority. I was merely reminding you of it, Captain. And from your response, it seems like maybe you're actually starting to remember it. But yeah, I do have something for you. Come on," the Sergeant motioned, then added belatedly, "Ma'am."  
  
"Alright, Sergeant," Cara replied, following him.  
  
They quickly arrived at the remaining sensor APC, a unit made specifically to pick up approaching Mobile Suits and other units through sound vibration. With radar left basically ineffective thanks to Minovsky Particle jamming, APCs like this one had become invaluable. The vehicle was crammed with equipment, along with seven Marines listening closely to sounds and triangulating their positions. A young looking female Lance Corporal seemed to be in command of the group; Cara recognized her as part of the Company Intelligence Detachment, though she barely remembered her name. The girl couldn't have been much older than nineteen, and certainly did not look like she was enjoying her tenure in the Federation Armed Forces. Her short blonde hair was almost as mussed as Cora's, and her dark green eyes showed how uncertain she was of what was going on. The girl was afraid, but she was trying to hide it while around an officer. When she had that kind of effect on enlisted personnel, Cora was sometimes frightened, but she was also awed. It was strange, wondering what it would have been like if their places in the rank structure had been reversed.  
  
"Corporal Yazz here has something to show you, Captain. She thinks she's picked something up. Maybe it's just another skirmish line to probe our defenses, but it might be that they've gotten tired of waiting us out," Mores summarized, pointing to the screens around the vehicle.  
  
"That's entirely possible, Sergeant," Cara mused, glaring at him, almost absolutely sure that he had known that she didn't know this Corporal's name. "So, Yazz, what have you got?"  
  
The Lance Corporal smiled weakly, leading Cara over to the leftmost screen, where a few small blips were showing up with consistency.  
  
"Well, Captain, we think we've picked up some movements about 12 klicks from our position. One or two blips, every five or ten minutes. We think they might be massing troops there."  
  
"But the system only picks up movement… it wouldn't pick anything up if they were just standing by down there," Cara thought outloud, staring at the screen.  
  
"That's what I thought, which is why I called the Sergeant. He had given orders that you not be disturbed, so I figured he'd decide if it was important enough to tell you or not."  
  
"Oh, he did?" Cara raised her brow at the sergeant, who grinned slightly, "Alright, this could just be standard perimeter movement, but you might be right. When did this start?"  
  
"About two hours before now. It just stopped thirty minutes ago," Yazz replied.  
  
"Then that means they've got anywhere between 4 and 8 mobile suits moved in," Cara observed, then turned to Mores, "Any suggestions, Sergeant?"  
  
"Well, Captain, we do have a few long range weapons. We could probably fire a couple bursts and see how many of them reply."  
  
"But that would just scare them into attacking right now."  
  
"Better than waiting until they have more suits."  
  
"I doubt they have more suits to waste on us. They're probably waiting till nightfall: the Zekes think they have better night vision equipment than us."  
  
"Do they, Captain?" Yazz asked, forgetting the "speak only when spoken to" rule.  
  
"No, Lance Corporal, they do not; that's one of the few things you get to learn when you're an Intelligence officer. Still, I don't want to fight them in the night. Can we send down a skirmish line to hit them first?" she asked Mores.  
  
"It'd be risky, and we've only got two Mobile Suits that are any good with close point combat. Mine, and Tiers; the problem is that Tiers got wounded in that last skirmish, along with his Suit."  
  
"Then I guess I'll have to pilot it."  
  
"I suppose that's one option, Captain," Mores conceded.  
  
Cara turned to the Lance Corporal and grinned to her, trying to take Mores' words to heart, "Good job, Yazz. Keep it up. We'll keep those Zekes from trying anything."  
  
The Lance Corporal smiled and nodded, then went back to work. Cara moved to leave the APC, with Sergeant Mores following close behind. He did not look pleased.  
  
"Do you have any experience with Mobile Suits, Captain?" the Sergeant asked, almost patronizingly.  
  
"Minimum, but all officers in a Mobile Suit battalion have to learn the rudimentary elements of MS combat. I can fire, and I can move. That's about all I need, since you're supposed to be one of the best, Sergeant. I can keep them pinned down while you lower their numbers a bit. I can also mark targets pretty well: comes from being an Intelligence Officer. I should be able to give Cromwell plenty of Zekes to pick off with that Beam Rifle of his."  
  
"I'd prefer that we didn't use the Beam Rifle yet, ma'am. Cromwell only has seven or eight more shots before the coils burn out."  
  
"If we don't use them now, we're never going to use them until it's too late. Besides, I've seen him in action. Every shot will count."  
  
"Yes ma'am, but a rocket spread might be a little more appropriate until we have our backs to the wall."  
  
"You wanted me to command, Sergeant, so I'm commanding. We'll keep the rockets until they try to charge us."  
  
"I did want you to command, ma'am, but you don't know anything about Mobile Suit combat. I doubt the beam would be able to do anything at that range."  
  
"Which is why we'll draw them towards Cromwell, Sergeant."  
  
"You'd stand a good chance of being left behind, Captain. Are you sure you could keep up in an MS?"  
  
"Well, there's noone else here who's qualified. So I guess I'll just have to."  
  
"Great. You know, I could just ignore your orders and form up the suits to repel an attack."  
  
"Yes, you could do that. And I could have you shot for disobeying orders."  
  
"I don't think so. I've already ignored your earlier comments about surrender. You know the Rules of Engagement: no surrender until we run out of ammunition or our force has been depleted to 10% of it's original strength."  
  
"Then I guess it all comes down to whether you want me to command or not, since neither of us has the upper hand."  
  
"I guess I did say I wanted you to command. Figures that would come back and shoot me in the foot. Alright, so you're in command. We're going down to take out a couple of Zekes. Do you want to plan that too?"  
  
"Didn't you know, Sergeant? Officers just hand down broad orders. It's up to the Non-Coms to come up with an actual plan."  
  
"I figured as much. Glad one of you guys finally decided to admit it."  
  
"Well, I suppose you deserved an explanation after all these years."  
  
"Thanks. I would have preferred to remain ignorant. Alright, it's not going to be nighttime for another three hours. That gives us an hour to get ready and another thirty minutes to get down there and execute the plan."  
  
"Great. Tell Cromwell. And I'll tell the men to position the artillery: we're probably going to need some cover fire on our way back up."  
  
"I'd rather not increase the risk of getting hit by friendly fire, Captain."  
  
"And I'd rather not have the entire Zeke military chasing me. Shall we?"  
  
"Sure, Cap. Whatever you say," Mores shrugged, wondering if he was about to get himself killed. He had been ready to relieve this wet behind the ears Academy punk just minutes before, and now she was barking out orders like she had been born for it. He supposed that if you slapped someone hard enough, they might actually be ready for the real world. Mores just wondered if it had been soon enough to keep them alive. The Captain still had a lot of growing up to do, combat experience or not. He stopped for a second and turned, calling to the Captain before she left his view.  
  
"Wait a second, Cap… we do not have better night vision equipment than the Zekes," he realized allowed.  
  
"I know that, Sergeant, but they don't."  
  
Mores grinned widely. Maybe she wouldn't do half bad at that.  
  
------------------------  
  
Cara had spent the hour prior to the operation planning out where her men would lay down cover fire, and making sure they knew what signals to respond to. Luckily, the Mobile Suit she would be using had a full load of flares, which would do fine as artillery markers. She had also climbed out of her crumpled Federation uniform, and pulled on a skintight flight suit that she had found in the effects of a dead female pilot. She couldn't help but wonder how women could stand wearing these things; she preferred the starchy, fine pressed standard uniform to something like this. Nothing was left to the imagination.  
  
That thought caused Cara to laugh at herself for a moment. She couldn't believe she was thinking about fashion, or her figure, at a time like this. It seemed so spectacularly trivial. Still, she figured it was better to be focused on that, than on one of the hundreds of things that could go wrong with this sortie. She really wasn't sure whether her basic training in the use of Mobile Suits was still active in her memory, or whether she'd be at all useful in a combat situation. Then again, she didn't have much of a choice. Mores was right, however tactless he might be; she needed to be an officer for the men. She needed to survive so that they would not be without a command presence.  
  
The Captain realized that she might not be the best of officers for this situation. Her idea to attack might very well end in disaster, with both her and Mores dead. Her mind was racked with doubts about her decisions, about whether her actions were correct, and whether her men would survive. She also realized that whether or not she was the right officer for the job, she was the only one there. Her men needed her to be that supreme being that knows everything is going to be alright. She had been elevated to status of both parent and God by the deaths of her superiors. She didn't relish the appointment, because up until this moment she had been one of the worshippers. Cara had always had complete faith in her immediate superiors, whatever her personal opinion of their decisions. It just always seemed like they knew what they were doing. It was sad to find out that their presence was as much of a charade as hers.  
  
Then again, perhaps it hadn't really been a charade. Maybe if you believed it enough, then the men would believe it as well. Cara only hoped that that supreme confidence she had seen in the Colonel's eyes would somehow be conveyed to her. Until then, she had a job to do. She needed to somehow stop this Zeke assault before it even began, with two Federation Mobile Suits against eight Zeke suits. She knew that Federation scientists believed the GM to be superior to the standard Zaku, but she'd heard the earlier fight. With the right placement, an inferior unit could destroy even a superior one. It was just common knowledge in the military: she'd learned that in Tactics 101 when they'd studied ancient Zulu tactics put in practice against the British Empire. On the other hand, she hoped, a superior unit used correctly could eliminate a thousand inferior ones. That was what she'd been taught, and could only hope that her old tactics instructor had been correct.  
  
With a quick tie, she brought her hair into a bun, and then exited her tent looking moderately well-kempt, her flight suit zipped up to the chin. She had no doubt that the men would be jealous of her accommodations, but that they'd also think that that meant she was truly in command. At least they'd have some confidence in her, even if it were coupled with envy. That was the way the military worked. She walked through the snow with as much confidence as she could muster, past the clusters of huddled infantrymen. They didn't look happy or comfortable, but Mores had a point: they still didn't look beat.  
  
Cora continued onwards, her eyes set forward, heading towards where Mores had stationed the Mobile Suit she'd be using. It had been well camouflaged, and so was out of danger of most long-range artillery. The remaining pilots knew their jobs perfectly, and had kept the men busy with such work as camoflauge and setting up what portable artillery pieces they had. This mostly consisted of a couple mortars and a few dozen anti-MS launchers, but it was better than nothing. Cora just worried about a second attack while she was busy with that Mobile Suit force. That mass of units could just be a feint, for all she knew. Then, while she and Mores were gone, another unit could massacre all these young men and women.  
  
Or the mass of units could be a trap, just waiting for something like she was about to attempt. This mountainous terrain made for many viable bottlenecks. It would be easy to cut down an attacking unit if you had the right amount of coverage. If that happened, these men, her men, would be done for. All that would happen, just because Cora wanted to get back at the enemy that had routed her unit only a few weeks earlier. Perhaps Mores was right; maybe all they could do was wait and act defensively, using the mountain's terrain to their advantage. Technically they could hold off a much greater force for weeks to come. There was a chance, however slight, that the Federation rescue force was on its way, and that she was sacrificing her men only days before being picked up. All these doubts assaulted her, making her wish that the burden of command had been handed to her. Cora was not a Mobile Suit commander. She had joined the Federation to help pay for school, not fight wars. She hadn't even heard of Zeon before they started dropping colonies on Earth.  
  
Cora's movements were slow, burdened by the snow, yet dignified. She did not let her emotions, her doubts, crawl to the surface. It was her duty to keep that buried inside of her. She was just glad that none of the soldiers approached her as she made the walk. The Captain just wasn't sure if she could handle that right now. She did not feel like breaking into tears right before a mission. Mores probably wouldn't think that it was becoming of an officer.  
  
It was strange, suddenly being told her duties by a man she had barely said even a few words to before this action. Mores was a pilot, she was an Intelligence Officer: they only interacted when they had to. She was friends with many of the other infantry officers, but not with any of the pilots. It was just a different community, where rank was ignored in favor of skill. It was exceedingly frustrating to be reminded of the importance of rank by someone whose entire job disregarded it. That, among other things, just bespoke of the whole oddity of this situation. The Federation Marines' entire operation was based off of rank structure and procedure. Now everything had disappeared in a few moments of firefight, and had been slowly breaking down further over the past two weeks. Now it was finally reasserting itself, on a godforsaken mountain in a godforsaken country that no one had cared about for over two hundred years.  
  
After a few more moments of moving through the brush and snow, Cara arrived at the Mobile Suit, which lay crouched under a gargantuan amalgation of camouflage tarp and various natural objects that the Marines had spread on top of it. The unit was definitely damaged: Mores had determined that a few of the movement gears were severely out of alignment. Even worse, it had only a magazine worth of ammunition left in its primary weapon. Cara could only hope that it would fulfill the mission she had for it: covering Mores and painting targets for Cromwell. It essentially only had to survive the trip there and back. After that, the Zekes would probably leave their position alone, waiting for them to starve or die of exposure.  
  
As Cara approached the Suit, she noticed there was only one thing out of place in the entire camouflage network; Mores was standing beside it in a dark red flightsuit, grinning sardonically. His flight helmet was cradled under his arm, his sidearm slung across his chest. This First Sergeant almost seemed eager for the coming event.  
  
"You ready, Captain?"  
  
"Yeah, Sergeant, I'm ready. Out of curiousity, why do you look so upbeat? I thought you were opposed to this?"  
  
"I still am, Cap. I think we're both going to die, since it's almost definitely a Zeke trap. I also think that another Zeke force is going to hammer into the mountain right here as soon as we engage. But hell, might as well go out in a blaze of glory. I figure we can take out seven before we both go down."  
  
"You're an optimist, then?"  
  
"I know, it's a curse. You're not gonna start crying, are you?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"Sorry, I just don't need to deal with any extra drama today. If you want to have inner conflict, that's fine, but do it after we get back."  
  
"I thought you said we weren't going to make it back, Sergeant."  
  
"Like you said, hopeless optimist. I'm hoping you know how to start this thing: we'll keep the camouflage netting until we hit the thicker treeline. Right now, the area's too sparse to be moving around without it. Normally they'd hear us coming, but I instructed our artillery to lay down a little bit of cover. We'll move when the explosions start."  
  
"Good idea, Sergeant. I knew there was a reason I keep you around."  
  
"Don't waste the false bravado on me, Captain. There'll be plenty of time later. Now, unless you've got any questions, I think it's about time to go. Since we're going with radio silence, go when the explosions start. Now, if you'll excuse me, it's time to grab my Tuxedo," Mores motioned toward his MS, a few dozen meters away, referring to it with one of the common Fed Marine slang terms.  
  
"Good luck, Sergeant," Cara waved as he headed off.  
  
"Good luck, Cap," he replied as he crested the hill, then disappeared behind the snow bank.  
  
Cara shook her head, smiled softly, then climbed under the tarp, and into the Mobile Suit. It would take a few moments to power up, and she did not want to be caught going through her checklist when the signal to move began.  
  
Cara had been wondering about quite a few things today, had been confused more than once. She couldn't quite make sense of what she was about to do, as it was most likely futile in the long run. Cara couldn't understand why she was risking her life in a useless endeavor, when she could just surrender and survive until the end of the war. She was surprising herself again and again, was beginning to be uncertain about who she had been, and who she was becoming.  
  
One thing was certain, though: this day had been full of new experiences. 


End file.
